10 Minutes With, a London-headquartered startup that offers a career matchmaking platform for graduates to help them learn about different career paths and be contacted by and network with companies and executives, has raised $4 million to accelerate growth worldwide — including a forthcoming U.S. push within the next few months.
Investors aren’t being disclosed, except for being described as experienced private equity and VCs, so make of that what you will. I understand, however, that this latest round adds to ~$400,000 previously raised by 10 Minutes With since being founded last year.
Competing perhaps most directly with professional network LinkedIn and the likes of job-finding site Monster, graduates and soon-to-be graduates sign up to 10 Minutes With and create a profile, similar to a CV, which businesses can look at. Students can then search through the list of companies and watch video interviews from different people based in a variety of roles within that company.
The idea is to help educate graduates on the business itself and how it might play into their intended career — its values, role responsibilities and day-to-day happenings within that company.
In addition, the aim is to answer a lot of the questions a graduate job seeker may ask an employer in an interview situation, as well as enabling students to learn about career positions they may not have considered before.
But, perhaps crucially, 10 Minutes With’s functionality includes the option for students to reach out to companies they want to work for directly, while giving these businesses access to the site’s graduate user base. It counts over 100,000 registered students attending more than 1,000 schools worldwide.
To that end, along with its London HQ, the company has offices in Beijing, Singapore and New Delhi — citing Asia as a key market in its traction to date. It will interesting so how or if this translates into making a decent dent in the U.S.
Revenue-wise, 10 Minutes With makes money by signing up business schools and universities and matching their students to the companies registered with the platform. In turn, businesses pay to access the site’s database of graduate students and to work with 10 Minutes With to produce related video content.
10 Minute With’s corporate partners include ING Group, KONE, Hiscox, Atos, Amadeus, Oracle and Telefónica. Meanwhile, its academic partnerships include over 150 institutions globally, such as LSE, London Business School, National University of Singapore, HEC Paris, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, University of Johannesburg and Trinity College Dublin.